President Henry Clay became America’s first president elected to the new six-year single presidential term, thanks to the 14th Amendment. Clay was also the first president from the newly minted “Democratic Party,” whose members had been part of the “Democratic-Republican Party” until the 1820 election when the Western members of the DRP split with their Southern counterparts. The new political coalition has been considered by many historians and even some contemporary observers as an ideological contradiction. On the one hand, they detested the idea of an overreaching federal government dictating policy to the states - this was the ideology of “states rights” that they shared with their Republican brethren in the South. On the other hand, they also wanted to spur westward settlement, which meant support for large national infrastructure projects, specifically the building of canals and roads that would help connect the country's interior to the East Coast. This aligned more with the Federalists, who generally supported such projects. 

With the new capital slowly taking shape along the banks of the Ohio River, hundreds of miles from the nation’s major population centers, President Clay saw the creation of a westward-bound road network as vitally important. As such, in the Spring of 1821, the worked with fellow Democrats in Congress to draft a bill that would establish the Federal Bureau of Improvements under the auspices of the Department of the Treasury (though Clay briefly suggested the creation of a new “Department of the Interior,” something that would happen by the end of the century). The FBI bill would pass the House on April 13th, 1821, followed by Senate approval on April 20th. President Clay signed the act into law on April 22nd, 1821, and appointed Josiah Colfax as the first Director of the FBI. The new agency was given the authority to manage the existing National Road that had been built between Cumberland, Maryland, and Wheeling, Virginia, and to lengthen that route and create new routes as necessary. The FBI was given an annual budget that would cover both maintenance and limited expansion, with the understanding that significant projects would require special Congressional funding. Almost immediately, Director Colfax announced that the National Road would be extended from Wheeling to Franklin, a plan that Congress would quickly approve. This project will be completed by the time Clay leaves office in 1827 - also in time for the inauguration of Franklin as the new federal capital. By the time the next administration took over, the FBI had applied for Congressional approval to create the Second and Third National Roads, extending from Cumberland to Boston and from Cumberland to Charleston. 

President Clay was heavily invested in completing the nation’s new capital city in time for the 1827 deadline, making regular trips to the fledgling city while in office. His first trip, in July of 1821, allowed him to be present at the laying of the cornerstone of Washington House, the future home of the American Presidency. In addition, the president oversaw the final plans for the government buildings that were proscribed by the original designers Kemp and Ogden (by this point, Josiah Kemp was no longer regularly involved in the project, but the Joint Committee had appointed Phillip Ogden as the chief planner). In fact, it was President Clay’s idea to name all of the executive buildings after their first office holders: “Washington House” for the executive mansion, the “Jefferson Building” for the State Department, the “Hamilton Building” for the Treasury, and the “Knox Building” for the War Department. During his presidency, Clay would be at the groundbreaking of every federal building under construction. 

The president also took an interest in improving national education, and as part of that, he helped sponsor the creation of the University of the United States. The new institution would receive an official congressional charter in 1825, though it would not open its doors to students until 1828, after the move to the new capital city. When students first arrived, only one central building was fully complete - like most things in the nation’s new capital in its early years. Over the next half-century, the UUS would continue to expand its campus northeast of the Congress Hall, becoming one of the key institutions of higher learning in the country. The campus also anchors the so-called “National Arts & Sciences District” in Franklin, home to numerous museums and the National Theater. 

While no new states would be added to the Union under President Clay, the vast Upper Louisiana Territory received its first significant division, laying the groundwork for several new states in the following administration. The land of the famous Louisiana Purchase had already had the state of Louisiana detached in 1812. In 1823, the Arkansas, Kanasaw, and Iowa Territories were established with territorial governors and legislatures. Administration of the remainder of the Upper Louisiana Territory would be overseen by a presidentially-appointed governor to be based out of what was then known as Fort Jefferson - renamed as Fort Calhoun in the 1850s.